The former Scotland boss was unveiled as new director of football at Hearts yesterday with Under-20 coach Neilson promoted to head coach. Locke has been snubbed for a place in the new system, despite winning plaudits for the performances of his team and skilfully holding the club together after they went into administration last summer.

Levein bluntly admitted Locke does not fit into his philosophy for the future that’ll see coaches writing development manuals and creating a legacy of successor planning.

Neilson, 33, revealed he was only offered his new role on Sunday night and knew nothing about plans for his promotion when he was working alongside Locke in recent months.

Levein said: “Once the decision was made to go down this particular road – three months ago maybe – Gary was not in the equation.

“It was horrible on Monday and I don’t want to sound trite at all because it was a lot worse for Gary.

“Telling him was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in football.

“On a human level you equate what he has had to go through this season and an experienced manager would have struggled.

“He has been dignified. He’s a young guy and has had his ups and downs but he has kept the fans and the media onside.

“If we say it’s about fairness I totally get the point he deserves a chance. He has done more than enough to get himself another manager’s job and I would suggest that’s the road he goes down.

“However, Gary coming in here as a coach within the system wouldn’t play to his strengths. He’s not going to write a coach-education programme for me or monitor that. That’s not what he does. And that’s the job here.

“There’s coaching the first team and the tactical side but also, so much bigger than that, it has to be about this original idea of building something from top to the bottom.”